“The Great Big Elephant and the Very Small Elephant” by Barbara SeulingPublished: Random House Childrens Books, 1977Pages: 40Buy on AmazonGoodreads

There are a lot of children’s books about relationships between two close friends. Most of the time, they’re simple stories about best friends who go through some kind of conflict and come out the other side with a stronger bond. Sometimes they give off an entirely different vibe.

The Great Big Elephant and the Very Small Elephant is about two elephants who can’t make it through life without each other. It’s very upfront about this only a few pages in, as the Great Big Elephant prepares to take his sick cousin’s place at the Circus Maximus during a short illness:

“Will you go?” asked the Very Small Elephant.
“Of course,” said the Great Big Elephant. “I must go. Someone needs me.”
“But I need you,” said the Very Small Elephant.

The book is divided into three different stories, each about how they support each other through life’s minor inconveniences. In the first story, the Very Small Elephant, after failing to trick the Great Big Elephant into turning down his stint at the circus, resigns himself to passing the time with letters until his friend returns.

Why would his friend turn down an opportunity to wear these beads?

In the second story, my personal favorite, the Very Small Elephant’s Aunt Matilda comes to visit and he has no idea how to handle it. The Great Big Elephant has to walk him through the steps for being a good host, including how to feed her, how to provide bedding, and where to take her. Aunt Matilda’s trip is described exactly like every awkward visit you’ve ever had with an elderly relative and I love it.

Perfect souvenir choices right there. They totally could not get peanut fudge at home.

In the last story, the Great Big Elephant is rescued by the Very Small Elephant from a mud pit and wrestles with his self-worth. It’s a remarkable moment after he’s spent the last two stories keeping the Very Small Elephant into collapsing on the kitchen floor in a puddle of tears, but everyone needs validation sometimes, I guess. Naturally, he gets his moment to rescue the Very Small Elephant, and the companions are happy again.

It’s difficult to read this book as an adult and not get the feeling that the elephants are more than friends. They have separate houses, but the emotional bond and day-to-day co-dependence reads like they are two very different personalities trying to approach life as a couple. In that regard, it reminds me very much of Frog and Toad, another children’s series with a same-sex subtext. As the accomplished author left a wife behind when she passed in 2016, that subtext may have been intentional. Whether it was or not, the book is a beautiful depiction of love in the middle of everyday, mundane problems.

Much of Seuling’s work was illustrated by other people, which I was sorry to learn, because I’m fond of the book’s gentle linework. The facial expressions on the elephants tell me exactly how the characters are feeling, from their raised eyebrows to the curl of their trunks, and it’s fun to see when she’ll choose to pose them on two feet or four. The backgrounds are detailed when they need to be, and sparse when it serves the story.

The Great Big Elephant and the Very Small Elephant is a long read as a picture book, and works best in smaller doses. I recommend reading the chapters on different nights until your child is ready to read on their own, which is what I did with my daughter. Even when I partitioned the book, she seemed less interested than I was at her age. There isn’t much action… I may be keeping this one around for me.

People who have seen hard times are tough to impress. In “Could Be Worse!” by James Stevenson, two kids can’t seem to get their grandfather to offer them any sympathy. No trying, troublesome, gut-wrenching day can get any comment out of him other than, “Could be worse.”

“Get back to me after you’ve served in World War II.”

Nothing upsets Grandpa’s apple cart, not even when the dog makes a mess.

This rug is so 1970s, it’s practically camouflage.

Stevenson was a prolific children’s book author and New Yorker cartoonist, and his illustrations anticipate the trend in modern books of using panels to convey multiple events on the same page. His approach draws from comics to show cause and effect, changes in expression, and sound effects.

New Yorker cartoonists love being compared to comic book artists. I recommend doing this often.

My daughter was resistant to pulling this book on the shelf, possibly because of the sketchy drawings, elderly featured character and muted color palette, but she changed her mind. She laughed harder and louder as the grandfather’s adventures grew progressively more outlandish. It surprised her, and I loved seeing her giggle.

“Could Be Worse!” has the highest number of reviews on GoodReads I’ve seen for one of my childhood books, and that’s a testament to its timeless humor. I recommend joining the many other readers who mentioned ordering a copy as an adult; you might be surprised at your child’s joyful reaction.

We’re back with another book by Theodore Clymer, the follow-up to Little Dog Laughed for Level 3. The third reader level is a thicker book, once again alternating photographs with illustrations. The location shots in this volume are credited to Ocean World, a private aquarium in Crescent City, California that was originally a Seattle barge (no, really). The aquarium and entertainment complex is still in operation and has just made my list of quirky road stops to visit.

Thanks, Ocean World!

There are a series of illustrators listed, but the featured story is a version of “The Hen and the Bread” by James Marshall. Marshall was the illustrator for one of my favorite books, Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard, in case the style looks familiar. Marshall spent most of his childhood in my hometown, Beaumont, Texas, and once said,

“Beaumont is deep south and swampy and I hated it. I knew I would die if I stayed there so I diligently studied the viola, and eventually won a scholarship to the New England Conservatory in Boston.”

I also recall worrying I’d die there, so we’re basically twinsies.

Master of the side-eye.

Since this is a Clymer book, we’re also reintroduced to Ken, the boy who can’t do anything right. When first we see him, Ken can’t figure out if he should eat bait or not.

Don’t eat bait, Ken.

Here he is failing to feed a dolphin:

Point and laugh, kids. That’s why he’s here.

Twisting himself into a loom:

He BEGGED for the chance to screw this up…

And picking up a bowl of flour and shoving it in his helpless face:

Dammit, Ken.

Fish and Not Fish picks up where the last book left off and adds punctuation, dialog tags and a few new vocabulary words. The baking story was especially helpful during the last half of my daughter’s Kindergarten year when we were learning the rule “E makes the vowel say it’s name.” Highly recommended for beginning readers.